To help ensure the timely delivery of information on networks and set priorities for selected network traffic, network devices, such as switches, routers, wireless LAN access points and bridges, typically include a fixed number of queues per physical network interface. With the increase in volume of time sensitive network traffic and the need to monitor and control traffic flow according to one or more constraints, it is often necessary for a network device to have and support a large number of physical queues per network interface. Unfortunately, it is often impractical for a network device to include and support a large number of unique physical queues per network interface, such as, eight or more physical queues per network interface. Nonetheless, more than eight physical queues per interface are often needed to support various classes of network traffic.
To address the need for network traffic shaping and policing, some network devices use a fixed number of dedicated physical queues per network interface. Other network devices use a virtual output queuing technique, while other network devices rely upon a shared memory buffer queue model for shaping and policing network traffic. Nevertheless, the need exists for a network device and method that readily handles both network traffic sensitive to time delay and network traffic sensitive to jitter, such as voice-over IP network traffic and storage-over IP network traffic, respectively, and also facilitate the operation of these applications simultaneously or in a near simultaneous manner. Moreover, use of such a network device and method allows a network provider or operator to support multiple classes of network traffic having the same level of prioritization, for example, multiple equal, but different, expedited traffic classes, which are typically reserved for the highest priority communications traffic.